The cases of sexual abuse in six dioceses in Pennsylvania show: Still the Catholic Church is an exercise in critique of the system. In order to protect children in the future, it must change the fundamentals.
The report of a Grand Jury in Pennsylvania is a glimpse into the Horror that has happened for decades in the Catholic Church of the U.S. state of. More than 300 priests should have at least 1000 children and young people in their care are sexually abused. The Jury members had worked for a half a Million pages of internal Church documents, and insight into previously secret Church archives. You assume that the number of unreported cases of abuse victims is substantially higher than the number of currently known cases, and “in the thousands”.
As in the previously known cases of abuse within the Church, it is not only the operations themselves, which are frightening – even the apparently widespread cover-up and the looking away of the Church, to the top of the bewilderment left behind.
Shapiro presented the Jury report on the 14. August
More than 80 years have passed, according to the report, a priest in the dioceses of Scranton, Allentown, Harrisburg, Greensburg, Erie, and Pittsburgh to girls and boys. In hundreds of communities complaints were swept under the carpet and priests to other locations was added.
“It went according to the pattern of abuse, denial, cover-up,” said Pennsylvania attorney General Josh Shapiro at a press conference on Tuesday in Harrisburg. In the report it is stated: “priests have raped little boys and girls, and the men of God would have been responsible for them, have not only done nothing – they’ve hidden everything.”
The Problem: “impeccability of the Church” as the highest Good
Dealing with these crimes testifies to many of the clergy of the Conviction that the Institution of the Catholic Church is above everything, and ultimately infallible, no matter what the accusations are. This setting criticized Stephan Ackermann, Bishop of Trier and the abuse Commissioner of the German bishops ‘ conference, shortly after the abuse scandal will be known in the case of German Catholics, 2010.
“It is not a matter of fact, the notion of inviolable Holiness and impeccability of the Church is helping to cover up the failings of individuals, if you are in danger, the Church as a whole could be affected?” the Bishop asked in 2010 in a lecture.
That was eight years ago. In January 2010, father Klaus Mertes, the rector of the Jesuit Canisius College made public, that at his school in the 70s and 80s may students were abused. The news was a bombshell. Within a few weeks, dozens of other suspected cases have been known.
In February 2010, the abuse representative of the Jesuit stated that there are at least 115 victims of abuse at schools of the order and of the Catholic Church. Later, statements were added to the hundreds of other victims, including the boys ‘ choir Regensburger Domspatzen and the Catholic children’s holiday homes.
In 2010, the Public in cases of abuse learned at the Berlin Canisius-Kolleg
According to the known abuse cases broke a trust in the Church among Catholics in the whole of Germany. “The Church exit numbers in the year 2010, a highlight,” says Joachim Frank, a member of the editorial Board of the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”. “That was a point on which many people of the Church have left because you have said, ‘with a so morally depraved Institution, we want to have nothing more to do.'”
Ackermann emphasized that absolute openness is necessary to the credibility of the Church. “There is no Alternative to transparency,” he told DW in an Interview in January 2018. “We are committed as a Church to the truth, and in this respect, we have to face the truth – the truth that is dark and painful, and imprisonment for debt.”
Older cases barred already
As a consequence of the events has been moved to Germany, since 2010, the limitation period for cases of sexual abuse. Since January 2015 is abuse in cases of child sexual: The criminal Statute of limitations will be suspended until the 31. Birthday of the victim. After that it is between five and 30 years, depending on the Severity of the crime. The Rest of the period of limitation until 31. Birthday also applies to cases that occurred before January 2015 – but only if they are not yet Statute-barred according to the then valid rules.
A similar scheme is also Affected now have to fight in Pennsylvania. Victims of abuse, which, according to the 27. August 2002, were 18 years of age, and may subject report to addresses on the display until you are 50 years old. But the cases of those who have been before this date, 18, are already time-barred. A criminal complaint is not possible. Civil actions are up to 30. Birthday of the victim is possible, no matter when you were born. Activists have long been calling for a Change in these rules. You want to abolish the Statute of limitations of sexual abuse.
“We are asking that members ensure, in Pennsylvania and throughout the country that the doors of the court are open to all Survivors of this terrible crime and cover-UPS, no matter how long the abuse is here,” it said in a statement that SNAP to the cases of Pennsylvania. SNAP is the “Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests”, a 1988, the group founded by and for people who were abused by priests.
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The Archbishop of Adelaide because of a cover-up condemned
A “moral disaster”
From the Vatican it was to the cases in Pennsylvania, the Pope, stand at the side of the victims. Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said abuse cases are “criminal and morally reprehensible”, the person responsible should be held accountable.
The popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI had issued a clear policy of Zero tolerance against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. But the Journalist Joachim Frank says, whether one is in Rome ready, these strict rules will actually be implemented, is unclear. “The Vatican is verbally strict,” says Frank, but in the Act of air was clearly upwards.
Also, the US bishops ‘ conference, is shown to be horrified by the cases in Pennsylvania. The Catholic Church in the United States is facing a “moral disaster,” said the conference chair, cardinal Daniel DiNardo. He also announced a series of reforms: Concerned should it be with the new communication channels made easier to complain about the clergy, and accusations will be investigated in the future, faster, more efficient and more transparent.
Critique of the system is crucial
In addition to reforms such as those now planned in the United States, it is especially important that the fundamental Thinking in the Church, something changes, says Frank, of the deals since 2010, with abuse in the Catholic Church.
“For quite a long time, especially in the USA, everything was done to protect the perpetrators, not the victims,” says Frank. “This has turned out pretty, I think. But in the case of the Statements of some bishops, it still has the feeling that there is a structure of institutions of protection and that the Church hierarchy will go to the systemic causes of the abuse, reluctant to approach.”
Frank believes that interdisciplinary studies, in which also the Church, will show “that there is a connection between the System of the Catholic Church and abuse. This System of celibacy, all-male society, homophobia and the spiritual authority that is associated with the priesthood, exercise may be an attraction to people who are vulnerable to abuse. The Church is not discussed enough, because there it comes down to business.”